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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27123071">No hearth to warm your hands by</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKidsFromYesterday/pseuds/TheKidsFromYesterday'>TheKidsFromYesterday</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Ectober 2020 [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Danny Phantom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blizzards &amp; Snowstorms, Ectober (Danny Phantom), End of the World, Insanity, Loneliness, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:34:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,107</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27123071</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKidsFromYesterday/pseuds/TheKidsFromYesterday</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When the world ends in ice and bitter wind, Danny's only company are the ghosts of his past.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Danny Fenton/Tucker Foley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Ectober 2020 [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952503</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>No hearth to warm your hands by</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Danny used to hate winter. The snowfall brought him nothing but grief in the form of constant shouting from downstairs. But now all was silent and still, like a graveyard. He supposed it made sense, as that was what the world had become. One giant mass grave, with the corpses of billions buried under mounds of soft white snow. There were still buildings to be seen, though if he wanted to enter one he would have to break a window, if he couldn't find one that had shattered from the freezing temperatures. But that would just mean that the snow was free to blow in and fill the temporary refuge, rendering it useless. So he stayed away and wandered across the endless fields of white.</p>
<p>
He would have given anything to see their faces once more. To hear their voices, to hold them close.
</p>
<p>
It had started with an unexpected snowstorm in October. Snowflakes falling in the place of leaves. They had laughed and enjoyed it as much as they could. But the snow stayed. It remained throughout the winter months, and well into what should have been spring.
</p>
<p>
Then the reports came in. The earth was making one last desperate attempt to cool itself off after countless years of pollution had begun to melt the planet. People were told to stay home and try their best to keep warm. To spend as much time as they could with their loved ones.
</p>
<p>
Danny's parents had spent most of their time in the lab, trying in vain to find some way to slow the encroaching ice. Jazz was away at university and couldn't make it home. No aeroplanes would risk flying through the blizzards that started and stopped at random. Danny spent most of his time with his friends, his icy core allowing him to travel as Phantom without feeling the sting of the cold wind as he flew.
</p>
<p>
But there was only so long that things could go on like that. Eventually lines were snapping and pipes were bursting. By that time the snow had piled up well over the roofs of most houses. The citizens of Amity were told not to attempt to leave their homes, and to instead wait for help to arrive.
</p>
<p>
Help that never came.
</p>
<p>
Danny's parents had been reluctant to let him out of their sight ever since the power went out. He managed to sneak out while they were sleeping one night, huddled together on a large mound of blankets, mattresses and pillows. He hadn't seen Sam or Tucker in over a week, as his family had needed his help pushing furniture against the doors and windows to prevent the rising piles of snow from forcing its way in.
</p>
<p>
Even now, he cursed himself for not going to check on them. If he had been there just a day sooner, he may have been able to save them.
</p>
<p>
Sam's roof had collapsed under the weight of ice, leaving the interior of the house coated in frost. He found her on a large bed with her parents, their blue hands frozen, forever clutching at shoulders and arms. Tucker's parents were dead, his father impaled by a falling icicle, more like an ice spear, that had fallen from the roof as he left the house. Danny wondered briefly where he was going. Perhaps to the shops, in hopes that the shelves hadn't been picked clean by looters. Not that anyone cared to call someone a thief in the frozen wasteland the world had become.
</p>
<p>
Tucker's mother was curled up next to Tucker in bed, clutching his hands in her own.
</p>
<p>
Danny left the house and went back home.
</p>
<p>
His parents went in their sleep, freezing to death as Danny offered them what little mercy he could.
</p>
<p>
Now he was alone. All alone in a dying world. He wondered if the earth would awaken soon, rousing itself from its slumber and rejoicing that the parasites that had plagued it for so long had died off, and a new, less destructive species could take their place.
</p>
<p>
"I thought I was supposed to be the doom and gloom of our group, Danny?" Sam chuckled as she skipped ahead of him.
</p>
<p>
"Come on, Danny. Don't let the end of the world get you down! Look on the bright side, you don't have to go to school anymore!" Tucker said cheerfully as he wrapped his arms around Danny's waist and rested his head in his shoulder.
</p>
<p>
They were here. But they were wrong. Sam didn't have cold blue eyes, and Tucker didn't have long, glittering icicles for nails.
</p>
<p>
But Danny would take what he could get.
</p>
<p>
He couldn't join them in the Ghost Zone, for the doors had frozen shut long before everyone died. But perhaps there was another way.
</p>
<p>
"Of course there's another way." Sam chided. "All you have to do is change back."
</p>
<p>
"Change back?" Danny questioned.
</p>
<p>
Tucker snorted and nuzzled into his neck. "You haven't realised that you've been Phantom ever since your parents died?"
</p>
<p>
Danny glanced down at himself, seeing the familiar black and white suit.
</p>
<p>
"Come on, Danny! I know just the place!" Tucker cried, grabbing his hand and dragging him through what may have at one point been a street, or a car park, or an ocean.
</p>
<p>
They arrived at a large mountain of snow. Tucker grinned at him and walked right through it as if it were air.
</p>
<p>
"Sam?" Danny said shakily.
</p>
<p>
She shook her head and shooed him forward, her sharp teeth gleaming as white as freshly fallen snow.
</p>
<p>
Beneath the snow was Tucker's house, or what was left of it. Danny let his feet guide him to Tucker's room, where two frozen bodies lay covered in frost. Tucker bounced on his feet in one corner. "Now we can be together, dying beside each other like Romeo and Juliet. How beautifully tragic."
</p>
<p>
Danny laid down beside Tucker, gently wrapping an arm around his frigid corpse. "Tuck, I'm scared." he whispered.
</p>
<p>
The corpses eyes opened with a snap, the neck turning with a harsh crack as he turned to face Danny. Tucker wrapped his arms around Danny and squeezed. "I know. But it'll be all right. Just close your eyes, and change back. Then we can be together."
</p>
<p>
"Forever, just like we promised, right?"
</p>
<p>
Tucker nodded and brushed the tears away from Danny's cheeks as they froze, his sharp claws leaving wounds that bled ectoplasm only for a moment.
</p>
<p>
Danny took a shaky breath, closed his eyes, and leaned forward to kiss Tucker's lips, which were as hard as concrete. There was a flash of light, and then he was gone.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So I was building a magnificent snow fort for my little brother when this lovely little piece of horror came to me. If the world ends like this within my lifetime, I'm challenging every person on the planet to the most amazing snowball fight ever. We'll have forts that take up entire countries. If we're going to freeze to death, we might as well have some fun before the frostbite sets in, yeah?</p></blockquote></div></div>
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